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It remains, then, poised in wisdom within itself; it could
not enter into any other; those others look to it and in their
longing find it where it is. This is that "Love Waiting at the
Door," ever coming up from without, striving towards the
beautiful, happy when to the utmost of its power it attains. Even
here the lover does not so much possess himself of the beauty he
has loved as wait before it; that Beauty is abidingly
self-enfolded but its lovers, the Many, loving it as an entire,
possess it as an entire when they attain, for it was an entire
that they loved. This seclusion does not prevent its sufficing to
all, but is the very reason for its adequacy; because it is thus
entire for all it can be The Good to all.
Similarly wisdom is entire to all; it is one thing; it is not
distributed parcelwise; it cannot be fixed to place; it is not
spread about like a colouring, for it is not corporeal; in any
true participation in wisdom there must be one thing acting as
unit upon unit. So must it be in our participation in the One; we
shall not take our several portions of it, nor you some separate
entire and I another. Think of what happens in Assemblies and all
kinds of meetings; the road to sense is the road to unity; singly
the members are far from wise; as they begin to grow together,
each, in that true growth, generates wisdom while he recognizes
it. There is nothing to prevent our intelligences meeting at one
centre from their several positions; all one, they seem apart to
us as when without looking we touch one object or sound one
string with different fingers and think we feel several. Or take
our souls in their possession of good; it is not one good for me
and another for you; it is the same for both and not in the sense
merely of distinct products of an identical source, the good
somewhere above with something streaming from it into us; in any
real receiving of good, giver is in contact with taker and gives
not as to a recipient outside but to one in intimate contact.
The Intellectual giving is not an act of transmission; even in
the case of corporeal objects, with their local separation, the
mutual giving [and taking] is of things of one order and their
communication, every effect they produce, is upon their like;
what is corporeal in the All acts and is acted upon within
itself, nothing external impinging upon it. Now if in body, whose
very nature is partition, there is no incursion of the alien, how
can there be any in the order in which no partition exists?
It is therefore by identification that we see the good and touch
it, brought to it by becoming identical with what is of the
Intellectual within ourselves. In that realm exists what is far
more truly a kosmos of unity; otherwise there will be two
sensible universes, divided into correspondent parts; the
Intellectual sphere, if a unity only as this sphere is, will be
undistinguishable from it- except, indeed, that it will be less
worthy of respect since in the nature of things extension is
appropriate in the lower while the Intellectual will have wrought
out its own extension with no motive, in a departure from its
very character.
And what is there to hinder this unification? There is no
question of one member pushing another out as occupying too much
space, any more than happens in our own minds where we take in
the entire fruit of our study and observation, all uncrowded.
We may be told that this unification is not possible in Real
Beings; it certainly would not be possible, if the Reals had
extension.
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